Saturday, December 13, 2008

At the foot of the hill, looking up.

I've started Hal Higdon's novice half marathon training plan and am trying to start off slow. I need to NOT run so hard and fast that I wipe myself out too much for the next day's training. So today, I ran 4 very very very slow miles. It took almost 55 minutes to cover the 4 miles, but I did it running the whole way. It aggravates me that keeping my heart rate at 65% max means over 13 minutes per mile, but I know if I keep at it, that time will decrease. I know from my race a week ago that I can run for 30 minutes with my heart in the red zone, but that it will take me days to recover and probably isn't the healthiest thing to do on a regular basis.

Hal's novice half is a 12 week training plan, but I've started 15 weeks out so I can repeat weeks if necessary, and not feel too guilty about taking a week off for vacation in a couple of months. My longest training run will be 10 miles and I'm actually looking forward to it. I've covered 10 miles before, but always with mostly walking so I didn't count it as a run. Really, if you count miles mostly walked, I'm pretty sure I've done sight seeing marathons with the only running being what was needed to catch a subway train :-)

I dream of running a marathon one day, but first I need to conquer the half, and maybe another length in between. Patience is not my strong point. The real highlight for today was, as I was running, nearing the half way mark, a startling flash of bright lapis blue streaked past my eyes. I watched it until it stopped and the vision of a bright blue bird lit on a near by branch. I thought, this is the real reason to run outside on a cold day, to see wonderful things I would never catch site of if I stayed inside.

5 comments:

Sarah said...

That is awesome that you are training for a half! I am looking forward to reading about it. :) I love running outdoors too...the scenery is always better than concrete walls, which I what I see on the treadmill. :)

greentigress said...

I can really understand your impatience!

A half marathon is huge if you want to run it all the way!

Good luck and have fun with your training!

Tanya said...

I like Hal Higdon's plans-I'm going to follow his novice plan for my marathon next year. Patience, grasshopper-patience! All good endeavors take patience.

BeachRunner said...

Smart plan, great goal. Good luck and way to go!

Clare said...

excellent goal! and good for you for having patience and following the plan. which half is it??